The Dark Side
by The Iron Sister
Summary: The London Institute was lead by a group called the Shadowhunters. Rich, beautiful, famous; they were the school's 'royalty'. Everyone worshipped them; Tessa Gray hated them. When she is approached by them, when she becomes nothing more but a piece in Will Herondale's game, she must join their twisted world, or the secrets they keep might just kill her. / High school AU, all human.
1. don't get too close

_Well . . . this story kind of came out of nowhere. I had no intention on starting it whatsoever, but the vision was so strong, I just had to write it. I couldn't help myself. I have to admit, I am a bit nervous as I am writing this, because I don't know how people are going to react to such a story. I'm sure that, when you clicked this story, you expected a typical high school AU and, well . . . I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't expect that. Sure, it is a high school AU, but maybe not the kind of AU you would expect. I will discuss more about it at the bottom, so for now, I will let you read this chapter before explaining more things._

_Oh, a warning before we delve into this. While I will be trying my best to keep the characters true to their personalities as much as I can, some of them might turn out to be OOC. I'm not saying that they will be definitely be OOC, just that the things that they will do might be out of character for them._

_Chapter song:_

_**Demons — Imagine Dragons_

* * *

><p><em>When you feel my heat,<em>  
><em>Look into my eyes,<em>  
><em>It's where my demons hide.<em>  
><em>It's where my demons hide.<em>  
><em>Don't get too close,<em>  
><em>It's dark inside<em>

Tessa Gray's school was a pretty dangerous place, but not in the way people might think.

It wasn't the attacks that happened occasionally. Those were common knowledge, and people weren't afraid of them anymore, not with the guards at the school's gates, keeping out every desperate guy who wanted to earn some easy money by kidnapping one of the students. Those wasn't really what made the school dangerous, though.

The danger was already lurking inside the school. Everyone there was special. Everyone, from the nerds, to the freaks, to the losers, to the populars, and to the rebels was crazy rich. The London Institute was a prestigious private school for the kids of the wealthiest and the most powerful and the most influential people in the world.

Tessa hovered by her locker for a second before joining the flow of students walking to their classes. It was so easy to slip by unnoticed there, to blend in. Almost everyone was starved for attention or was spoiled rotten. Usually both. It was like a war. And the thing about attention there, it was guaranteed to come back and bite you. Most people wanted it anyway.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket so she ducked in an empty washroom to answer it. "Hey, Jessie," she said after checking the caller ID. Jessamine Lovelace was her best friend since freshman year. She was one of the wealthier kids, her father, Damon Lovelace, was the CEO of a big, successful company. She was also one of the fewer people who didn't act like she earned her wealth, when it was all her family's doing. The two of them didn't have a lot of classes together, so they usually made up for the time they didn't spend together by calling each other during their breaks.

"Handling classes well?" she asked.

"Yeah. You know how it is. Why are you asking?"

Jessamine had never asked her about her classes, although she did ask about how she felt like at school. Tessa suspected she felt slightly guilty for not spending that much time with her, because of the few classes they had together and the big campus they had to walk through. As little time as they spent together, Jessie would still remain her best friend. She couldn't push her away after four years of friendship.

"Just asking. There's been a lot of drama so far."

Tessa blinked. "What kind of drama?" After four years spent in the London Institute, she'd learned how to get updated on everything that was going on. She didn't want to get involved in the wars of power and dominance that usually took place.

There was a pause, and she could imagine Jessamine roll her eyes at Tessa's questions. Curiosity was Tessa's besetting sin, as Jessamine had always said. "You know, the rich kids battling for dominance."

_You're lying_, Tessa thought, but she didn't say it out loud. She could feel a slight tremor in her friend's voice as she talked. Tessa knew there was something more than what she was letting out. Jessamine had gotten in some trouble of sorts.

Tessa decided to let it drop, though and change the subject. The school's usual drama wasn't something she wanted to keep talking about. "How's Mr. Branwell?" she asked instead.

There was a pause, and she imagined Jessamine shaking her head and frowning. Henry Branwell was an eccentric science teacher, and an aspiring inventor. He was a genius, everybody had to give him just about that, but his inventions didn't last longer than ten minutes without blowing up. While Tessa found his determination and his failure adorable, Jessamine hated his guts, most likely for burning her clothes after one of his inventions blew up two years ago. "Same old, same old. His class almost blew up today," Jessamine finally responded.

_You're still not telling me the whole truth_. Tessa had no idea what was going on with her best friend. Jessamine's voice seemed much too tight, going up a few octaves when it wasn't necessary. The tremor was still there, but Tessa couldn't think that she was scared of something. Jessamine usually wasn't that easily intimidated, unless the Shadowhunters were involved.

Tessa heard some voices in the background on her side. "Look, Tessie, I gotta get to class," Jessie said. "Save me a spot at lunch, alright? Take care of yourself."

"Bye." She clicked the phone shut and stared at the white wall in front of her. What had Jessamine meant by a lot of drama? Sure, a lot of things could happen in the London Institute, mostly revolving around the Shadowhunters, but she and Jessamine always avoided talking about it or getting involved. _Focus on your classes now_, she told herself. She was just overreacting. Her friend would be fine. She returned to her locker to pick her English textbook and the book they were currently studying, Romeo and Juliet.

Mr. Bane was a teacher whose English class no one skipped. Not because he was one of those strict, severe teachers. It was quite the opposite. He was the youngest teacher they had, and he was very laid-back and funny, to the point where everyone loved him. Of course, there were girls who thought they were in love with him, and Tessa had liked his reaction when she'd told him. Magnus Bane was also her father's close friend, and he was also the one her father had asked to keep an eye out on her. They got along really well, and he was a person she could go to in her breaks when she felt like talking to someone other than Jessamine, for even she could get quite overwhelming.

She was the first to walk in his class, as she usually was, even though there was only one minute left before the bell would ring. Magnus looked up from what he was writing on the blackboard and gave her a soft smile he usually reserved for her, but didn't comment any further. After all, he knew she was always the first one to arrive to his class. She took her usual seat in the back corner of the class and pulled out her textbook as the class started filling up with people.

Tessa noticed that the Shadowhunters who were in her class had not arrived, and they were usually the first ones to come in and reserve their seats. Maybe in another school, she would brush it off as nothing important, but in the London Institute, not knowing what was going on around you meant instant danger. While Tessa wasn't socially out-going, she was observant. She noticed everybody when they didn't want to be noticed. She heard every story, listened to every gossip.

But this was one thing she didn't know. Not yet.

Thirty minutes into the class, there was a knock on the door, and seconds later, it opened. Tessa didn't bother looking up from her book; not only was she way too engrossed in it, but she already knew who would open the door in the middle of the class like that and not get a detention or be punished for it. She wondered why they bothered knocking in the first place. They were the Shadowhunters, after all. Every teacher was cautious enough to get in their good graces. They'd all heard the stories about them.

She'd heard them too. They were rumours, but there enough of them to send a chill down everybody's spines. There'd been stories of teachers who'd been brave enough to give one of them a detention, or extra homework, or worse, to call their parents after they'd disturbed the classes. That had been the last thing they'd done. They'd messed with the wrong students. The following day, they'd been gone, and nothing had been heard of any of them. Rumour had it that they'd never gotten jobs as teachers back after that. The Shadowhunters had seen to that.

"Just get in already and stop disturbing my class," Tessa heard Magnus grumble from the blackboard. The class had fallen in complete silence, and she was sure that if she would look up from her book in that moment, she would be met immediately by the sight of the other students gaping at them. Of course they would be. Everybody worshipped the Shadowhunters. Everybody thought the ground they walked on was blessed. Tessa scoffed at this.

When Tessa did look up, she felt someone seat himself in the seat next to hers. The only reason she did look up was to check who would sit down next to her, when nobody ever dared to get close to her. She was wondering who had become another victim of the Shadowhunters, another foolish kid who'd given up his place just so that they could all stay together like they wanted to.

But it wasn't a foolish kid she was. No, it was somebody else. Somebody she would recognize anywhere, with his rich tangle of black curls and elusive blue eyes, a shade that stood out against his pale skin. His signature smirk was absent, but there was still a dark glint of amusement, as if he found the world both tragic and comical at the same time.

Tessa would recognize him anywhere. It wasn't as if everybody worshipped him because he was one of the Shadowhunters.

William Herondale.

_What the hell is he doing next to me?_ Tessa angrily wondered to herself.

He was part of the Shadowhunters, the leading group of their school. It was made up of five people — William and Cecily Herondale, James Carstairs, and Gabriel and Gideon Lightwood. There'd been two other members, two girls, the rumours had said, but Tessa didn't know much. Nobody did. They were very good at covering themselves up when they wanted to. They were a group of close friends, but somehow, that had escalated quickly to them being the school's version of royalty because of their families' wealth. They were the wealthiest of the filthy rich.

William and Cecily Herondale. They were twins, son and daughter of Edmund and Linette Herondale. While Linette was a successful doctor working at one of the most prestigious hospitals, Edmund was one of the most powerful figures in international business and finances, owning some of the most successful companies in the world. You could say they were crazy rich, and at the same time, one of the most elusive families. Nothing was known about them. There'd once been a scandal which Tessa had heard her mother and father talk about, about a child, though that was all she knew.

James Carstairs, son of Jonah Carstairs and Ke Wen Yu. His father was British, his mother was Chinese, originating from Shanghai, and the two of them were important figures in the trade between China and the rest of Europe, owning most of the trading companies. She'd heard James was by far the nicest out of all of them, though she didn't how true that was.

Gabriel and Gideon Lightwood, sons of Benedict Lightwood. They were the family that had been involved in the most scandals. From the sudden disappearance of Barbara Lightwood, to the rumours that had run rampant about Tatiana Lightwood, Gabriel and Gideon's younger sister — they were certainly a very dangerous family with a lot of dark secrets. Unlike the Herondales, everybody knew better than to get closer than they needed to the Lightwoods. Benedict was cruel, and his sons, or at least Gabriel, had inherited that trait from him.

These families were also tangled up with each other. It was why their children had ended up being friends to begin with. Being three of the world's richest families, they'd settled on having a close relationship instead of competing against each other. They were also said to be part of a secret organisation of sorts, which was mostly why their children's group had been called by the media the Shadowhunters, why everybody had started fussing about them as soon as they'd stepped in the London Institute.

Tessa had always tried to keep her distance from them, not because she was scared of them or of what they could do to her or anybody else, but because she'd heard the stories of people who'd been brave enough to venture close to them. There'd also been people who'd messed with them. Either way, the outcome hadn't been pleasant. People had gone missing, and they'd never been found again. While nobody ever blamed the Shadowhunters, Tessa knew better. They've been involved somehow, and she didn't want to end up the same.

Staying away from the Shadowhunters meant safety.

And now, one of them was sitting right next to her, looking as if nothing was wrong. And nothing would be wrong if he wasn't who he was. If he were someone else entirely.

Will Herondale was by far the most mysterious out of all of his group or friends. From the stories Tessa had heard, she'd made up a characterisation for each of them, yet Will was undecipherable. Nobody knew what was beneath the cruel exterior or personality he showed. If there was anything beneath at all. For girls in their school, he was like a burning flame, and they were addicted to the warmth it offered, but if you got too close, its warmth could engulf you completely, usually leaving nothing behind.

Tessa didn't know how many of the stories she'd heard about him were true, but there were enough of them to send her running as fast as she could away from him. Under that smirk and glint of amusement in his eyes, there was something dark and twisted, something more dangerous than the world could even imagine. Even if he was just seventeen and even if he was the perfect image of purity and innocence, he was dangerous.

Before she could say anything, Will gave her one of his dashing smirks, as people called it. "Tessa, is it?" he greeted her nonchalantly. "I suppose there's no need for introduction, is it?" _Of course there isn't_, Tessa thought to herself, but she didn't voice it. She already knew who he was, and he knew that as well. But how do you know my name?

_Might as well get to the point_. "How do you know my name?" she asked. By the time she spoke, everybody was gaping at them, especially at her in horror. Judging by the looks on their faces, they were probably wondering who she was and why she had the nerve to speak to him like that.

"Why would I not know your name?" Will answered, a perfect picture of innocence with his wide eyes and sweet smile.

_Maybe because I'm not like you_. She wanted to tell him that, but it would've shown weakness. She couldn't let him see just how much it concerned her that he knew her name, because she was sure the others knew her name as well. "So, you just happen to know the name of every single girl in our school?"

"And if I did, would that bother you?" he challenged. "You know, most girls would kill to be in your current position."

Tessa stiffened next to him, because his words were a little too close to the reality of the things than he suspected. He was pretending that he wasn't aware just how girls were reacting in face of the competition to get to him. They were capable of doing anything, because they were that desperate. Everything to get to the heart of a boy who doesn't have a heart at all.

"Mr. Herondale," Magnus called from the blackboard, drawing all eyes to the two of them.

"Yes, Mr. Bane?" Will answered lazily, smiling sheepishly at him, a perfect act he was keeping up, which made Tessa wonder why he bothered. It wasn't as if he could get in trouble for speaking in class.

"Perhaps you would like to share with the rest of the class what you were disturbing Miss Gray with?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. That was one thing that she liked about Magnus was that he didn't get easily intimidated by the Shadowhunters, despite of what they could do to him if they wanted to. He wasn't scared of the Shadowhunters.

Will shook his head. "I am sure Miss Gray over here is not as bothered because of me as you think," he said, his eyes flickering momentarily to Tessa before his cold gaze rested on Magnus. "Or are you suggesting otherwise, Mr. Bane?"

Magnus' gaze hardened, and Tessa could practically feel the intensity of their gazes. She wanted to reach up to warn him to keep quiet and go on with his class, but she knew it would be futile. "First," he began, "you arrive late for class. Second, you're disturbing your colleague who, unlike you, is actually interested in my lesson. Third, you are rude and disrespectful with your teacher. I could give you a detention for all three of these, Mr. Herondale."

Tessa tried shaking her head slightly, warning Magnus. _You are playing with fire_, she wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come. Will was clenching his fists under his desk, his knuckles turning white, his blue eyes so cold, though Magnus seemed unfazed by his reaction. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet and the anger in it was thinly controlled. "I think we all know what would happen if you did that, Mr. Bane. You wouldn't give me a detention, unless you want to end up like all those other teachers who tried to do the same thing."

Magnus pursed his lips in a thin line, but did not comment any further, which made Will to grin victoriously at him. Tessa felt sick to her stomach. He was well aware of the power he had in the palm of his hands, offered to him by his family's wealth. All of the Shadowhunters were. And nobody could do anything but to obey them, and try not to be tangled up in their mess.

The bell rang, and Tessa didn't waste any second. She gathered up her textbook and dashed outside from the classroom, as far away from the Shadowhunters and Will Herondale as possible. She wasn't afraid of them. No, she was past that point. She was afraid of what they were hiding. She was afraid of the reason why Will decided to sit down next to her, because she knew that everything he did had a purpose, even though it didn't seem like it. He didn't sit down next to her just for the sake of having a chat. There was something else, far more twisted than she could ever imagine.

She had been chosen for something, she knew.

And that alone was terrifying her.

. . .

The London Institute's cafeteria was probably the world's fanciest school cafeteria. It wasn't even a cafeteria, really. It was more like an oversized lounge, with soft couches and beanbags instead of the typical plastic chairs and wooden tables of all shapes and sizes. There was also a glass panel, which you couldn't see much through, at the end of the room, separating the Shadowhunters' personal lounge and table from everybody else's.

Tessa stirred her food with her fork. That was another thing that made the London Institute stand out from any other school, even other private ones. The food was exceptional. A staff of experienced five-star chefs was hired by the school, even though she suspected the Shadowhunters had something to do with it, to prepare their food and keep it warm throughout the day until the students' lunch time. She'd heard that in other schools, the food was usually cold and not eatable, but in the London Institute, there hadn't been a day when the food hadn't been great. It was luxurious to the point of insanity.

Her mind snapped back to attention when she heard the bustle of the other students. Or rather, when she didn't hear it. The cafeteria was silent to the point where you could hear the students' breaths. Nobody dared to move, and Tessa realized that it had to do with the Shadowhunters. They were in the cafeteria. Every single one of them.

That in itself was strange. While they did have a separate lounge, they didn't frequent it. That was what made them as mysterious as they were. Nobody knew where they went, where they spent their time during their breaks and when they skipped their classes. Nobody ever saw them, except for the few classes they attended. And now, they were casually strolling through the cafeteria to their private lounge, as if nothing was out of ordinary. Perhaps for them, nothing was.

Like everybody else, Tessa was watching them. But she wasn't watching them for the reasons that everybody else did. She was trying to see if they acted in any way differently, but she couldn't tell anything from their nonchalant postures. Gabriel Lightwood was the first one to walk, his arm draped over Cecily Herondale's shoulders, leaning towards her to whisper in her ear from time to time things that were making her giggle. There had been stories of the two of them over the past few weeks, but Tessa hadn't believed them. It looked like they've decided to make it official.

James Carstairs and Gideon Lightwood were walking side by side a little bit behind the others. They were the only ones out of their group who were somewhat nicer towards everybody else. Nice my ass, Tessa thought. At the end of the day, they were still rich kids, members of rich families and rich secret societies. She'd learned that rich people like them couldn't been nice, no matter how much they tried. The environment they were living in didn't let them.

Will Herondale was the last one to enter the cafeteria. His head was down, and he was apparently avoiding the gazes that were thrown in his direction. His black curls were tumbling on his forehead, hiding his eyes. He was unusually quiet. Whenever he would come in the cafeteria, he would wink at every single girl staring at him, making them blush. But not today. Something was definitely wrong.

To make things even worse, when Gabriel and Cecily passed the small round table where Tessa and Jessamine were seated, they stopped, looking at them. Or rather, looking at Tessa. She could feel the two's intense gazes on her, along the other students gaping at her, like they did when Will sat next to her in English class. That was strike two. She'd been seen two times now with the Shadowhunters.

It was Cecily who spoke, while her blue eyes were sizing her up. "You are Tessa Gray, correct?" she asked, her voice sweet and innocent, though you had to be the world's biggest idiot to not realize that she was faking it. She sensed a sharp undertone to her voice, Gabriel's gaze matching it. The other three boys had stopped next to their table, and Tessa noticed James shaking his head slightly, though they either didn't notice him, or they chose to ignore him.

She also noticed that Jessamine's face paled considerably. Was she scared of them? Jessamine, who wasn't scared of any of the popular rich kids, was intimidated by the Shadowhunters? Tessa decided to ask her later about that._I'm not scared of either of you_. "Yes, that would be me," she answered calmly, setting her chin up confidently.

Her reaction drew a short laugh from Cecily. She nodded minutely before grabbing Gabriel's arm and dragging him along, not without shooting Jessamine a sort of warning look, after which Jessie paled even more, if that was possible. James and Gideon followed suit, not sparing a glance at her. It was Will who, when he passed their table, stopped for a moment and smirked at her conspiratorial, before walking away on his merry way to their private lounge, leaving everybody else, Tessa included, wondering what they wanted from the two girls who didn't stand out in any particular way. She wondered why Jessamine had paled when she'd seen them stopping at their table.

Tessa decided to voice this. Might as well find out the whole truth. "What is going on with you today?" she asked, her voice going up a few octaves when she saw Jessamine looking anxiously at her food, fiddling with her fork.

"I'm fine," was her simple response, though it was clear that she was far from being fine. From the way her eyes wandered nervously around the cafeteria, as if she was looking for someone, to the way she began fiddling with the hem of the T-shirt she was wearing, it looked as if something was wrong. Still, her voice was calm enough when she spoke again. "I can ask you the same thing," she said. "Since when does Cecily Herondale know your name? And since when is Will Herondale smirking at you?"

_Since he wanted something from me_, Tessa thought, but she didn't dare tell Jessamine that. She couldn't involve her friend in this matter. She would deal with whatever she had to deal with. Instead, she told Jessamine of what happened during her English class. She told her about how Will, Cecily and Gideon, the only Shadowhunters who had English with her, had surprisingly come to class and Will had sat down next to her. How he had known her name when Tessa was sure she'd never talked to him before.

Jessamine frowned. "He knows your name," she repeated, her eyes growing big. "They all know your name. Why doesn't that terrify you? You seem far too calm."

_I'm not calm at all_. "They know everybody's names," Tessa shrugged trying to brush it off, and it was partially true. The Shadowhunters knew about everyone and everything that happened in the school, though for what exactly, she didn't know. "That doesn't mean they want something from me." Don't lie to yourself like that.

Her friend shifted slightly in her seat, her brown eyes full of questions. She rested her elbows on the table, leaning closer to Tessa. "They're the Shadowhunters. They are dangerous. They are bad news. They don't just come to another student outside of their group for a chat. No, they always come with a reason, and that reason alone can be the death of you if you're stupid of that to get involved with them and in your world. I hope you know that."

Tessa eyed her friend suspiciously. There was something more to her warning, something she wasn't letting out. It was as if she was warning herself to stay away from them, not her friend. Tessa leaned forward as well, until they were close enough for their talk to be heard by nobody but them. "Why are you saying that?" she questioned. "Did _you_ get involved with them?"

"_What_?" Jessamine's eyes widened. She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "Of course not. I'm not that stupid, especially after what I've heard today."

_Liar_. "What did you hear?"

Jessie grimaced. "Remember that girl who used to have a crush on Will Herondale?"

"Which one of them?" Tessa arched her eyebrows. There'd been a lot of girls who'd had crushes on Will alone.

"Camille Belcourt," she elaborated. "She never came back for this school year. That, of course, shouldn't arouse any suspicion, but one of the girls in my science class, who lives next to the Belcourt family, told me that two days before the start of the school year, she saw Will's car in front of her house, with Will himself in it, and Camille walking in his car."

"And?"

"She never came back."

Tessa swallowed the lump that was forming on her throat. She'd known Camille. She was a good girl, too smart to get herself involved with the Shadowhunters. What had happened to her? What could she have possibly done to them? As twisted as the Shadowhunters were, despite all the rumours she'd heard, she couldn't quite believe that five minors, no matter who they were and which family they belonged to, could do so much damage.

"I don't know what to make of this," Jessamine concluded as the two of them got up on their feet and got out of the cafeteria, making their way to their lockers. "I don't know if it's true, or if that girl just wanted to make fun of me. Either way, you know they're dangerous. You know how powerful and influential their families are. They're not the right people to play with."

"This is messed up," Tessa admitted. She unlocked her door of her small locker and stuffed her bag inside before checking the schedule taped on the inside of the door. History, with Charlotte Branwell, Henry's wife. It was another class she had with two of the Shadowhunters, Will and Gabriel. She just hoped they would stick to their usual routine and not show up. She plunged her arm inside the locker, grabbing her History textbook, while Jessamine was leaning against the neighbouring locker, watching her intently.

"It is," she agreed. "But there's nothing we can do about that. We just have to stick to our little mantra, and nothing bad will happen to us. You'll see." Her voice was shaking slightly, and she sounded as if she didn't quite believed what she was saying. A few months in their freshman year, after they'd found out about the Shadowhunter and the danger they represented, the two of them made a sort of pact, with a mantra. _Not getting involved means safety_. Which, in their school, was true.

The two of them parted, and Tessa headed for her History class. She noticed that the hallway was emptier than usual, almost to the point where nobody was there, even though the bell hadn't rung yet. There was no way in which the students could've left earlier for classes, especially when everybody was trying their best to skip the periods after lunch and leave the campus, because they were usually the most boring ones of the day.

Then, out of nowhere, she felt someone grab her arm rather forcefully and push her hard against one of the lockers, hitting her head in the process, making her vision blur slightly. Her back hurt from the impact, and she felt her eyes water from the pain, but she wouldn't let herself cry in front of the boy's familiar face that materialised in front of her. She knew exactly who he was, and now, everything began clicking in place in her mind.

"I want you to come with me," he hissed in her ear, his breath stirring her hair, while still holding her pined against the locker despite her attempts to break free. "The others want to meet you, and it would be best not to keep them waiting."

* * *

><p><em>Here you go. First chapter. Now that it's out there in the world, I can breathe properly. Sort of.<em>

_Now, after reading this first chapter, I think you can understand what I meant by not your typical high school story. Because, like I said, it's not. This story is way . . . darker? Yes, definitely darker than any other fluffy high school AU. I like writing mystery stories, so there's definitely going to be a lot of that in here, along with some fluff (because, really, everything that I write needs to have some fluff), a lot of drama, angst and other things as well. One thing I can promise at this point is that it's going be one hell of a ride, so fasten your seat belts._

_I do not have an updating schedule. My school year just started a week ago, and this year is a pretty hectic year for students my age in my country. I can't make any promises, though I will try to update once a week. Again, I will try. Emphasis on try._

_The next update does depend on you guys, and the response this chapter gets. Before uploading the next chapter, I want to make sure that you guys want me to go on with this. I want to know if you're invested in this story, if you would like to read this story. So, for now, I don't know if I will continue this, because I want to know what you think of this from what you've read._

_Thank you so much for reading! And I hope you like it._

_- The Iron Sister_


	2. we are the reckless

_In this part of the author's note, I don't have that much to say. I just want to say a massive thank you to all who reviewed, followed and favorited so far, because the response the first chapter got was umbelievable. To those of you who have an account, I will thank you personally over a PM. To all the Guests that reviewed, know that whoever you are, your kind words and encouragements have made my days so much better. Thank you!_

_The reason for not uploading this chapter sooner was school, pretty much. I had some tests last week and a lot of homework, more homework than I have anticipated, but now I adjusted to my schedule and I have found the time to write. I have also settled on an updating schedule, which I will talk about in the second part of this author's note._

_Chapter song:_

_**Youth — Daughter_

* * *

><p><em>We are the reckless,<br>__We are the wild youth  
><em>_Chasing visions of our futures  
><em>_One day we'll reveal the truth  
><em>_That one will die before he gets there._

"Are you always this quiet?" Will asked as the two of them walked down the school's hall.

Tessa glanced at him, and then looked away without answering. So far, neither of them had uttered a word ever since he pushed her hard against that locker and dragged her along with him without any other further explanation. While she couldn't say she enjoyed the silence, not only because it gave her more time to think about what was going to happen, but also because it was far better than talking to Will Herondale, the last person on Earth she ever wanted to talk to in that moment.

Despite herself, she looked sideways at him as he led her through corridors that were unfamiliar to her. His mop of tangled black hair, as black as the cloudless night sky, was falling in his eyes, and he was brushing it away impatiently, groaning in frustration. His eyes like dark blue glass were staring straight ahead, not quite looking at her but not quite letting her out of his sight either. Whatever he — they, the Shadowhunters — wanted from her, it had to be important.

She was an expert at reading body language. Her brother had been the one who, at their father's request, had taught her how to tell what people were thinking or whether they were telling the truth or not from the way they moved or spoke. He had taught her how to observe the way the person she was looking at was usually moving, and what were that person's reactions to certain things. He had taught her to look out for anomalies in that person's usual behaviour, and she had practiced that on so many people, it had become child's play for her now. She was good at what she was doing, there was no denying that.

Yet Tessa couldn't read Will Herondale. She couldn't tell what he was thinking.

It seemed strange, being able to read body language, invading people's private lives. It did require a lot of staring, as Jessamine, who was the only person outside her family who knew about it, said. In a school like the London Institute, though, it made a difference between knowing and not knowing what was going on around you, and that alone, that knowledge, could just be the only thing to save your skin and keep you out of trouble.

And that was the only thing that was terrifying her in that moment.

She didn't know what was going on.

There was nothing Tessa could see that would tell her what Will was thinking. It wasn't the first time when she tried to read him, or any other Shadowhunter for that matter. Just as she was an expert at reading body language, they were experts at masking their thoughts and feelings, as if they were aware that they represented weaknesses that Tessa or anybody else could use against them.

Despite even that, the Shadowhunters had their moments when they slipped. Once, she had seen from the way Cecily Herondale was carrying herself that she was dealing with grief, the loss of a person who at some point meant a lot to her. Gideon Lightwood had exposed his admiration for a girl, whose name Tessa thought was Sophie Collins. She had seen Gabriel Lightwood's obvious hatred for Will, the way his whole body stiffened whenever he was the anywhere near eldest of the Herondale siblings, though neither the boy in question nor his sister had seemed to notice it.

James Carstairs, unlike the others, either didn't appear to have any secrets at all, which Tessa highly doubted, for he wore a perfect mask of innocence. His thoughts and feelings were written all over him wherever he went, as if he was inviting the whole world to read him like an open book. Once, when he'd passed through the cafeteria and had caught her looking at him, he had smiled at her, much to Tessa's surprise. Still, she didn't quite buy his whole act of innocence. She had learned the hard way that nobody that rich and that powerful was innocent. Not even someone as kind as James Carstairs.

Will, on the other hand, was completely unreadable. His movements never betrayed any emotion or thought, his face always a well-composed mask, with his signature smirk the only thing that was somewhat human about him, though she wasn't sure if he was actually feeling something when he was smirking like that. Never in the four years she had been in the same school as him had she ever seen him smile, not his half-smirks, but a genuine smile. Something to prove that he had a heart, a human heart, a sort of sign that behind his mask was a human being and not a heartless monster.

There was something Will was well-known for throughout the school. Tessa had been warned about him and his little games ever since she stepped on the front door of the high school at the start of her freshman year. She'd been warned about the arrogant, handsome, charming yet heartless boy, who had the title of biggest player around, alongside others. Unlike other boys, though, he wasn't just a player; he liked to cause heartbreak in his wake.

She'd heard of girls who'd been foolish enough to fall hard for Will. It didn't really matter who the girl was; the outcome was still the same. For him, these kinds of relationships were nothing more than meaningless flings, but he didn't stop there. After he was done, or rather after he got bored, he didn't let the poor girl be. He liked to break the girls' hearts, to humiliate them in front of the entire school, and now, he turned into a sort of tradition. Each month, there was a girl, a foolish and hopeful freshman or sophomore, desperately seeking her first boyfriend, who got humiliated by the one and only Will Herondale.

That was one of the many reasons why Tessa refused to talk to him. Because he would try to charm his way to her, to pull up an act so good even her, the girl who wasn't easily fooled by anything that happened in their school, would probably fall for, and she knew that the fall would be hard and painful. And she didn't want to risk that, because she'd seen enough girls who'd had trouble picking themselves back up after all of that was over, and she didn't want to become one of them.

"Or do you hate me?" he continued after some time, tapping his chin lightly with his finger as if he was concentrating hard, breaking Tessa out of her reverie. If not for the slight mocking tone behind his words, he would've almost sounded shy. Almost being the key word.

Again, she looked at him and looked away without responding. Part of her, despite her better judgment, wanted to jump at him and ask him what he, and the rest of the Shadowhunters, wanted, but she held all of her questions back. _No vulnerabilities he can take advantage of_, she thought bitterly to herself. If he, or all of them, were planning on doing something awful, planning on embarrassing her in front of the entire whole school or spread some fake gossip about her, she really wished he and the rest of his friends would just get it over with instead of playing that game. Talking like they were friends. Like they had actually talked before.

They hadn't, in case that wasn't obvious.

Will led her down an unfamiliar hallway behind the Shadowhunters' lounge in the cafeteria. It looked like every other hallway in the school, except it had strange black markings all over them, and she saw a sort of pattern, the same markings repeating themselves over and over again in the same order. There was a mark that was dominant, a marking she had never seen before, though she couldn't quite describe it.

The London Institute was huge, consisting of several buildings, and despite the fact that Tessa had been there for four years, she hadn't seen all of it. That part, she thought, was the part of the campus that was strictly for the Shadowhunters. Once, the staff room, the guidance counselor's office, the detention room, and the nurse's office had been situated in that part of the school, but apparently, the Shadowhunters had demanded that they have a private part for themselves, where they usually hung out when they weren't in class, so those rooms had been moved in another side of the school to make room for the Shadowhunters.

He stopped walking abruptly in front of a white door, marked with the same dominant mark she saw on the walls of the corridor, and he pushed it open, revealing another sort of lounge with couches and a wooden bar with a flecked countertop. The rest of the Shadowhunters were lounging on the couches, and when Will and Tessa walked in, the conversation that was going on between them abruptly stopped.

"Found her," Will shrugged, gesturing absentmindedly at Tessa. That's when she caught the first hint of any sort of human emotion. It was barely there, a sort of crack in his well-guarded wall, yet she noticed it. She was the only who did, actually. She couldn't quite put a finger of what was sort of emotion was behind his words, but she could tell that there was something._ I am going crazy_, she thought as Will gave her a slight push into the room and shut the door behind them.

Tessa thought for a moment that she probably should've been ecstatic to be standing in front of the group of teenagers most of the world, or at least, the other students in the London Institute, worshipped; while people feared them, she knew that most of the school would sell their souls and everything else they possessed to be standing exactly where she was. And maybe she would've too, if she didn't hate people like them. People who could look at you, guess all your secrets and take advantage of them to the point where you became their personal slave. People who could crush you under their feet as if you were nothing more but a worthless insect, not truly worth their attention.

"I don't really think you need introductions, but I'll be doing them anyway," Will snorted, his arrogance back up, the little crack she thought she saw gone so fast, that she thought she had imagined it. But she knew she hadn't. She was always right, and he was also right in his statement. Despite the arrogance behind his words, it was true. She already knew who the people standing in front of her were. "That's my sister, Cecily." Will said, gesturing to the girl closest to them.

Will's sister, an exact replica of him, lazily looked up from her magazine and looked at her from head to toe, as if he was scanning her to see if she was fit for whatever they had in store for her. Cecily Herondale, from what Tessa could tell, was the party girl who usually got bored by everything else around her. She was more ignorant, pretending not to care about what was going on around her, but she knew that Cecily was always aware of everything. It was hard not to be, especially when you were sort of in charge of things.

"Gabriel," Will began.

Gabriel Lightwood looked equally bored. He didn't even bother to look up at her from his place next to Cecily's. He nodded slightly while running his hand through his tousled brown hair, keeping his green eyes glued on his phone, as if he was waiting for somebody to contact him. He was the sort of guy mothers usually warned their daughters about. Both him and Will were players around the school, but Gabriel had stepped back from that position ever since he started dating Will's sister. If there was one person Tessa was sure he cared about, it was Cecily, judging from the way he usually looked at her when he thought nobody was paying attention.

"Gideon."

Gabriel's twin brother. Gideon Lightwood was apparently nicer than the rest of the Shadowhunters, but he was also very quiet and shy. He was quite handsome, if you liked that type of guys, with his sandy blond hair that was always sticking up, no matter how hard he tried to tame it, and his emerald green eyes identical to his twin's. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod, his eyes avoiding her gaze, but other than that, he kept silent.

"And Jem," Will finished the introductions.

James Carstairs was the one member of the Shadowhunters that Tessa actually liked a bit and had a sort of odd respect for. He was the nicest out of all of them, even Gideon. He wasn't afraid to talk to other people outside of his group of friends, didn't think of himself as superior than the rest of the high school students. He was the perfect gentleman, her mother liked to say whenever Tessa told her about the people in her school. Giving everybody one of his kind smiles, a small reassurance that everything was going to be alright in the world, helping people out whenever they needed it — he was the only Shadowhunter people didn't fear. He smiled at her, the warmest smile she'd ever seen on a Shadowhunter's face, but there was something in his silver eyes, a sort of warning that held all the insults she wanted to fire at the Shadowhunters back.

It didn't surprise Tessa at all when Cecily was the one to break the silence. "I think we can start?"

She watched them watching her for a moment before she gathered her courage to ask the question that had been nagging her since Will had taken her away from her locker. She knew she it wasn't smart of her to ask them questions they could later used against her, but it was better than not knowing what they had in mind for her. "Why did you want to see me?" she asked when no one said anything.

A look passed between Gabriel and Cecily, the ones who were considered the group leaders. They were the ones who usually pulled the strings, who were in charge of their group of friend. There had been a time when Will had been involved in the leadership as well, but for the past year, he'd been to busy breaking other girls' hearts, although Tessa suspected it had to do with the fact that his sister was dating his competition when it came to the title of the biggest player around.

"What do you think about reading body language, Tessa?" Cecily asked, instead of answering her question while she twisted a strand of her midnight black hair on her finger. She was also watching her carefully, her eyes narrowing at Tessa, watching her every movement and reaction.

_They know_ was the only thought going through Tessa's mind. The question was, _how_? She'd never told anybody about this skill of hers. Only Jessie knew, but she wouldn't go spill her best friend's secrets to the group of people she hated the most. Then it hit her. Trick question. It was meant to trick her into spilling her secrets without knowing what she was doing. But if they thought they could get anything from her, they were wrong. She pushed down her shock, forcing herself to keep her expression calm and almost blank. Like theirs. It was best to copy the other person's expression, that was the first thing Nate had taught her.

"I think it has both its advantages and its disadvantages." She kept her answer vague, careful, cryptic. Another skill, if you could call it that, she had learned from her brother.

Gabriel let out a short laugh. "She is the right girl for the job," he declared, stretching his long legs in front of him. He had looked up from his phone, but only for a moment, to give her a somewhat critical glance. "I don't know where you found her, Will, but you've done an excellent job at finding someone fit for what he have in mind."

"Why am I here?" she repeated before Will had the chance to answer. Her question came out a little bit sharper than she had intended, maybe a little too harsh considering whom she was talking to, but she didn't take it back, because, despite their reputation, she didn't regret it. She kept repeating the same sort of mantra in her mind over and over again. _No weaknesses_.

"Why shouldn't you be here?" Gideon asked her, still avoiding her gaze. She had always thought he was the more naïve one out of the group, the more clueless one who wasn't aware of what was going on, but apparently, she had been wrong. Behind that perfect look of innocence and kindness always plastered on his face lay another person, one who wasn't that different than the rest of the Shadowhunters.

"I've never talked to any of you before," Tessa replied, trying to soften her voice and reason with them. "Or anybody involved with you, for that matter. So why me?" The last part was barely an audible whisper, and she hoped for a moment that they didn't hear it.

It didn't surprise her that Will heard it. "What about Jessamine Lovelace?" So was Jessie the reason she was there, then? She bit back a curse before she could say it. And everything clicked. Of course. It made perfect sense. Maybe that was why Jessamine had looked so pale when she'd seen the Shadowhunters during their lunch break, when they'd stopped at their table, when Cecily had had a warning in her eyes when she'd looked at Jessie. And now, because of a stupid mistake her friend had probably done, getting herself on the Shadowhunters' bad side by doing God knew what, Tessa had to pay the consequences.

Tessa had avoided the Shadowhunters for three years straight, ever since their group had been formed. It wasn't that she was scared of the Shadowhunters, not really. More like she hated them for being who they were and who their families were. All of them were part of very powerful families, and one slip up could ruin her life. She didn't care so much about those things but she knew that reputation was a big part of her parents' careers. She knew that if she slipped up, it would ruin not only her, but their entire family, so that was the reason why she tried not to in the first place.

And what was slightly terrifying was that she wasn't even exaggerating.

Tessa tried to keep her voice as flat and as even as possible. She couldn't let them read her thoughts like an open book. "What about her?" she asked calmly, composing herself.

"Don't think you can fool us, Tessa Gray," Gabriel said, eyeing her with a dangerous look in his eyes. "We know everything that happens in this school, everything about the people that interest us. We know she is your friend. Best friend even."

"I'm sorry, Your Majesties, for not knowing that I am not allowed to have a best friend." She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. But she didn't apologize. She didn't dare to, not even when Gabriel's expression darkened slightly. But, out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed Jem, who was sitting on an armchair by the window, watching the conversation unfolding in front of them with a curious look, shake his head at her slightly. When she dared to lock gazes with him, she saw a sort of warning in his gaze. _You are playing with fire_, his silver eyes seemed to say.

Her response drew a laugh from Gideon, much to her and everybody else's surprise. "You have to admit, Will didn't exactly pick the right person for the job," he said, his words addressed to his twin brother. "She won't do it without fighting back."

"Her fighting back will be futile," Cecily interrupted, superiority laced to her every word. "It will lead her nowhere, and I'm sure she knows that as well." Her gaze fell on Tessa once again. Cold. Unforgiving. "What do you think of games, Tessa?"

She noticed that Cecily kept on asking her cryptic questions that had no relevance to anything at all, so she decided to keep her answers as vague as possible. "It depends on who is playing them," Tessa spoke with a bit of confidence. "What do you want from me?"

"A game," Will replied before his sister got the chance to.

"You want me to play a game with you," she challenged. The pieces were actually beginning to fall together in her mind, though it didn't quite made sense. What sort of game did they want to play? And what did any of it have to do with her and Jessamine? It seemed strange that the Shadowhunters have taken an interest in her and her friend so suddenly. They were the only ones that had truly tried to stay out of their way, but maybe that was it. Maybe they've made themselves noticeable by not getting involved as everybody else did.

"You're quick," Gabriel pointed out. It was hard to tell whether he meant that, or whether he was being sarcastic.

"Not with us," Cecily added, "more like for us. And this game we will be asking you to play for us, so you can't tell anybody about it. You really don't want to find out what happens if you do. Trust me on that one."

_Oh, I'm sure. You don't have to warn me, I already believe you_, she thought, but she didn't say that out loud. Instead, she simply asked, "What sort of game?"

"You see," the other girl smiled wickedly at her, "we want you to spy on Jessamine Lovelace for us."

And it was official.

They were going to use her against her best friend. And she wasn't able to fight against it, because they would ruin her if he denied their request. But, if she accepted it, she would ruin her best friend. It was a lose-lose situation either way, and she didn't see any way out of it.

It also became official that the people ninety-nine percent of the school worshipped were one hundred percent crazy.

"Why would you want me to do that?" Tessa asked, keeping her voice as calm as possible, though it was far from what she was truly feeling. Confusion, anger, curiosity, frustration were some of the emotions which were raging inside of her, threatening to spill out and expose her in front of those crazy people. She'd heard a lot of weird things about the Shadowhunters, and she'd guessed even stranger things from their behaviour, it was true, but what they were asking out of her was on a whole new level.

The she finally realized. For them, it was nothing more but a game. They were bored, and this was entertainment. None of them, not even Jem or Gideon, seemed surprised at what Cecily was asking out of her. They must've done that countless of time, using people as their personal puppets, so many times they seemed unfazed by it, and maybe even more.

And now, she was one of those puppets. A puppet for their own personal entertainment.

She could almost hear her brother's voice inside her head telling her to keep calm, that there was no point in freaking out before she didn't know all the details. But she already knew enough. They wanted to use her, and really, she didn't need to know more in order to hate them even more than she hated them before, if that was even possible, considering she hated them a lot. She hated them for wanting to bring down, her best friend, and possibly, even their families, because they had that much power.

_Don't let them see you break down_, Nate had told her once when she'd broken down in front of everyone and had made a mess of her father's job. She still remembered her brother's words. _They'll jump on any weaknesses they see, and at the end, it will be you who will lose, not them. Remember that._

Under the unforgiving gazes of the Shadowhunters, that was exactly how she felt.

Will chuckled. "Let's just say that, unlike you, your friend hadn't been smart enough to keep a low profile. Though she was quite entertaining to be with." He smiled at her, but it was nowhere near nice. It was a challenging smile, really, like he was waiting for her to break down in front of him and for him to enjoy it. "I almost feel sorry for you. If it weren't for your friend, you wouldn't have been here now." If it weren't for the mooching tone behind his words, he almost sounded sincere.

"What did she do?" Tessa asked, her voice shaking ever so slightly.

It was Jem who spoke, much to everybody's surprise. "It is something you don't need to know," he interrupted as Will opened his mouth to reply. Jem's voice was flat, but when they locked gazes for the second time, the warning in his silver eyes was still there, and she bit back her response. "Trust me, the less you know, the more protected you are. If you know more, people might try to get answers out of you, and that would put us and you in danger."

"You're much too soft on her, James," Gabriel commented. "She needs to know what she is getting herself involved in, because things might take a turn for the worst at some point, and she needs to be prepared for what's to come."

Jem's glare was deathly, but that wasn't what surprised Tessa. The words that came out of his mouth did. "You mean what we are dragging her in?" he demanded, his voice raising with every word. "You know I never agreed to this, Gabriel, and neither did Gideon nor Sophie. Will said it. She kept a low profile. I am sure there are a lot of girls willing to take her place, and you know that."

_Why is he defending me?_ Tessa thought, staring at the boy. His eyes were filled with anger, his muscles stiff and tense under the shirt he was wearing. How long have they beed planning this? How is Sophie involved with the Shadowhunters? She didn't have time to dwell on her thoughts, because Cecily spoke up.

"Yet she is the only one fit for the job," the girl interjected, rising from her seat. They all seemed to have forgotten that she was still in the room, listening to their conversation. Will and Gideon had fallen silent, not quite looking at each other but not quite sure where else to look either. "She is the only one who can get close enough to Jessamine without arousing any suspicion from the others. Even you, our precious little saint who is all about kindness and the goodness of the world and the human soul, know that."

Silence followed after Cecily was done speaking, silence that Tessa broke by finally asking, "And what if I don't want to play this game of yours?"

Will was the one who answered, and he smiled at her innocently, though it didn't look as nice as it was probably intended to be. "Trust me, Tess," he began, smirking at her. She wasn't even surprised anymore when he called her like that, even though nobody had ever called her that before. "You've been told not to mess with us, for we can ruin your life in the blink of an eye. And if you refuse to play this game, or if you even say something to anyone about it…" He stopped, before he added. "Well, like Cecily said, trust us, you don't want to find out."

* * *

><p><em>Whew. It's such a relief to get this chapter finally done. It's shorter than the previous chapter, but I figured it was a good point where to end it.<em>

_You guys had a few questions, so I will be answering those which I can answer without revealing anything here._

_1) Jessamine is definitely not a Shadowhunter. It would be much too predictable, wouldn't it? All I can say for now is that she upset the Shadowhunters in ways which might turn out to surprise some of you. It surprises even me, if I'm completely honest._

_2) Will is not going to be abusive. Like, seriously, it's Will we're talking about. He just has his strange ways of catching a girl's attention, and possibly the worst timing ever in the history of worst timings, which is something you'll definitely see as we go along. There will be a lot of . . . awkward moments._

_3) As for the Shadowhunters . . . All I can say now is that nothing is as it seems. That's all. Don't trust anyone, don't believe anyone. We're seeing things from Tessa's POV, which means that she's not aware of a lot of things. But it builds up the anticipation for the big revelations. It's why I'm holding back on certain POVs for now._

_I have also decided on an updating schedule. I will be updating once a week on Sunday. I originally wanted to post the chapter on Friday, but something interfered and that schedule is not working for me. So, that's your day to check. I will let you know if anything changes, though I hope not._

_Again, thank you so much for your reviews! I hope this chapters gets the same positive response as the previous chapter._

_Till next Sunday!_

_- The Iron Sister_


	3. what was right is wrong

_Ha, I told you I'd be sticking to my schedule, though I must say I was this close to not posting this chapter tonight. I'm just __glad I am finally done with it and I am able to post it._

_I'm sorry for not replying to your reviews through a PM yet. I promise I will start doing so tomorrow after school. I just want you to know that I can't thank you enough for everything you said in those reviews. You guys are the best and you make my days a million times brighter. So yeah, thank you so so much!_

_Chapter song:_

_**Bleeding Out — Imagine Dragons_

* * *

><p><em>You tell me to hold on<em>  
><em>Oh you tell me to hold on<em>  
><em>But innocence is gone<em>  
><em>And what was right is wrong<em>

The next couple of days went by much slower than any other usual day. Tessa spent them by trying to keep even a lower profile than before, which was really low indeed. It was harder than before, since several people had witnessed Will taking a seat next to her in English class and the Shadowhunters stopping at her table during lunch. Any news and gossip involving the Shadowhunters spread like wildfire, so she wasn't surprised when she started noticing people staring at her and whispering whenever she passed by.

She didn't tell Jessamine about her encounter with the Shadowhunters. She couldn't bring herself to, no matter how hard she was trying to convince herself that she wasn't afraid of them or what they were going to do if she did tell anybody else of what game they wanted her to play. But she couldn't shake Will's words, and the way they'd all looked at her, even Jem, as he'd said them.

_You've been told not to mess with us, for we can ruin your life in the blink of an eye._

The words wouldn't have normally scared her. She'd learned that words had no power at all, unless we let them. But she'd noticed the look in Jem's eyes, Jem, who she'd thought was kind and innocent. There'd been something in his silver eyes, a sort of resignation and acceptance that there was nothing he could change and that she'd have to suffer through it.

Lucky for her, no one had actually come up to her, choosing to watch from a distance instead, much like they did with the rest of the Shadowhunters — the only one of the Shadowhunters anyone dared to approach was Jem. They had all watched her throughout the week, some giving her sympathetic looks, as if she'd just signed her death sentence. Which, if the Shadowhunters were involved, was really close to what was happening. Her luck ran out on Friday, though, during her last period, which sucked since she had almost made it through the week.

"You are Tessa, right?" She looked up to see a dark-haired girl with luminous dark hazel eyes that were watching her with curiosity. Tessa recognized her almost instantly. Sophie Collins. One of the few girls in the school she actually liked despite never having talked to her. Like her, Sophie was pretty quiet, and kept out of the spotlight most of the times. It was hard for her, though, ever since what happened nearly a year ago. She'd been caught bad-mouthing the Shadowhunters, and after that, she hadn't come to school for almost a month. People, Tessa included, had started to believe that something had happened to her, and their theories were confirmed when she'd come to school with a thick, silvery ridged scar which slashed from the left corner of her mouth to her temple, pulling her face sideways and distorting her features and marring her beauty.

Tessa shivered. She didn't even want to think about how Sophie had gotten that scar in the first place, although it was on her mind. She'd automatically suspected the Shadowhunters at first, of course, like everybody else did, but now, after her talk with the Shadowhunters and after hearing Sophie's name in their conversations, she kept thinking about the ways in which she might be involved. How did the Shadowhunters know her? What did she do to them? Who made that scar on her face?

"You don't mind if I sit down, right?" Sophie asked. Tessa just shook her head and got back to her book as the other girl sat down in the seat next to hers, putting down her bag and taking out her books for the class. "Is it true that the Shadowhunters wanted to talk to you?"

She glanced at Sophie from the corner of her eye. "Maybe." She hadn't really expected Sophie to care for these things. The fact that she was one of the few people who didn't worship the Shadowhunters and the ground they walked was had been one of the things she'd liked most about her. But maybe Tessa hadn't read her properly. It was, after all, just one of her speculations.

"And they asked you something weird," Sophie went on for her, turning to face her. "Right?"

Tessa froze. It wasn't a question she expected to hear, especially since it wasn't a question people would usually ask. Did Sophie know more than she let on, somehow? Before she got the chance to respond, her voice cut in.

"Look, you and I will be best friends from now on," she said, leaning forward so that nobody would hear their conversation. "You can't trust anybody with this. It's much more dangerous than you think. Trust me on that one."

Tessa eyed her skeptically, trying to hide the slight shiver going down her spine. "If you say I can't trust anybody with this," she spoke, her voice flat, "then why would I trust you?"

"Because," Sophie whispered, leaning even closer, "if you want to make it out of their game alive and unhurt, you will need me. Nobody, and I say _nobody_ else knows more about them than I do."

There were so many questions Tessa wanted to ask Sophie, but the words wouldn't come. She froze under the other girl's piercing gaze, looking at her with eyes wide in horror and fear. She lost her chance to ask Sophie all of her questions when a new, annoyingly familiar voice cut in their reverie.

"I think that is my seat," Will stated nonchalantly. It wasn't particularly true, since they didn't have an assigned seating in their history class, but Sophie gathered all of her stuff in a weird hurry and moved to Tessa's right at another desk, but not before she threw her a look. _Careful_, it seemed to say. Will, on the other hand, seemed relaxed. He casually slid into the empty seat and . . . _smiled_? It wasn't one of his smirks, not really, but it was the most genuine smile she'd ever seen on his face, much to her surprise.

By that time, everybody was looking at them, and Tessa couldn't blame them. The Shadowhunters were usually gone by seventh period. It was strange that Will out of all of them had chosen to come and sit beside her, someone who was a whole social ladder away from the Shadowhunters. Mrs. Branwell cleared her throat, drawing most of the eyes to her. If she was surprised by the fact that Will had decided to come to her class, she didn't show it.

"So," Will said, turning to her as Mrs. Branwell started talking. Tessa nodded absentmindedly, alternating between keeping an eye out on Will to see what he had in mind and listening to what Mrs. Branwell was telling them about. She stopped listening to the teacher when she realized that she was just doing a recap of what they'd learned the previous year.

"I didn't know you were that interested in history," Will pointed out lazily. "Usually you don't seem that curious about the glorious history of our fair country."

Tessa rolled her eyes. "I've been raised as a true patriot," she said sarcastically. She wasn't going to give in to Will Herondale's pitiful attempts at charming her. She wasn't going to push him away, either. She was going to have a lot of fun in responding with good comebacks to his remarks.

"Ah, yes," he smirked, "the typical American chick. I'm not even surprised."

They were talking so casually, as if they were best friends and for a moment, Tessa almost forgot who she was talking to. Almost. Being best friends with a Shadowhunter, and the most annoying out of all of them? Who was forcing her to spy on her best friend? Yeah, that would work out just great.

Will looked at her with something unreadable in his dark blue eyes and, as if reading her mind, he said, "You wonder why I'm sitting down next to you." He raised his eyebrows as if challenging her to say otherwise, but before she got the chance to speak, Mrs. Branwell turned from the blackboard and looked at them.

"Mr. Herondale, Miss Gray," she began, a sharp edge to her usually soft voice. "Is there something you would like to share with the class?" She arched her eyebrows while maintaining a stern look, her kind brown eyes holding an amused edge to them. Under normal circumstances, Tessa would've found it amusing, the way she managed students like Will, but not when Tessa was involved as well.

Will just leaned back in his chair and winked at the teacher. "You see, Mrs. Branwell, Miss Gray here was, like every other girl, of course, looking up to my natural beauty and was wondering how someone could have such fine features like mine." Everybody in the class started laughing under their breaths, while Tessa wished she could make herself disappear. Or better yet, slap Will. Hard.

Mrs. Branwell was clearly holding back a giggle. "Is that so, Mr. Herondale?" she asked, giving Tessa an amused glance.

"Actually, no," he rectified. "We were just discussing our weekend plans."

Tessa bit back a groan at the shocked stifled gasps from around the room. Strike three. She had been seen with the Shadowhunter three times in just a week. First Will had sat next to her during English. Then the Shadowhunters had stopped at her table at lunch. And now they were apparently spending their weekend together. Great, Tessa thought to herself.

"Well, you can discuss your weekend plans in fifteen minutes, Mr. Herondale, Miss Gray," Mrs. Branwell said, to which they both nodded. When she turned back to write on the board, Tessa whipped her head in Will's direction, who looked bored.

"Are you out of your mind?" she hissed, doing her best to keep her voice down. "_Discussing our weekend plans_? _Wondering about your fine features_? Talk about egocentric people." The last sentence was barely a whisper, but judging from his expression, he had heard it.

Will was unimpressed. "Your welcome," he simply said. "You could've gotten a detention for talking during Mrs. Branwell's class. You know how she is. Short stature, short temper." He turned to look at her. "Pretty much like you, except for the short stature." When Tessa looked straight at him without replying, he said, "Look, I want to help you. You need my help in this game. Trust me."

She snorted. "Help me?" Tessa asked disbelievingly. "Weren't you the one who threatened me, saying that I didn't want to know what would happen if I didn't play this game?"

He bit his lip. He lowered his voice and shot a quick glance around the room. "And I wasn't kidding. You really don't want to find out what happens if you don't play along. Others did, and it didn't turn out that great for them." There wasn't a threatening edge to his voice, not anymore. But something about the way he said it made her want to listen carefully.

"And what would make me trust you?" she asked, eyeing him to see any change in his posture, or any sign of betrayal. There wasn't any. He seemed sincere enough, though where he was going with it, she had absolutely no idea. "What makes you think you're the only who can help me?" She remembered the little exchange between her and Sophie at the beginning of the class, and she had said the exact same thing. A lost of people wanted to help her, it seemed.

His blue gaze was as unreadable as ever. "I can help you," he repeated. "You know my sister and that worm of a boyfriend she has are making the decisions. Not me, not Jem, not Gideon. Just the two of them. And I don't always agree with them." He paused, before he added, "Do you want my help or not?"

Tessa considered her choices. She could say no. Sophie had already offered to help her, and for some reason she trusted that girl. Yet Will Herondale was right next to her, offering his help as well, and for the first time since she'd met him, she could see something real in him. Something human. A sort of vulnerability that she had never associated with Will before. Until now.

She nodded and looked back at the board, ending the conversation. Will didn't seem to mind. As Tessa turned to face the front, Sophie caught her eye. She shot her the same terrified trouble look, and then turned away. Tessa talking to the Shadowhunters meant something to Sophie. Not curiosity or envy like the other students.

Something different.

**. . .**

As soon as the classes were over for the week, Tessa was out in the front yard of the school, blending in the flow of students eager to get out of there. She knew most of them just wanted to get out of the classes that bored them, and most likely throw parties during the weekend and get drunk until they forgot their own names. But that wasn't Tessa's case. She was just avoiding the Shadowhunters, really, as much as she could anyway. Or, if she was completely honest, she was avoiding Will, because she was sure he was still lingering around.

Tessa didn't trust him. She didn't trust him to get her out of the situation he dragged her in. The Shadowhunters weren't known for helping people out unless there was something else motivating them. Maybe the Shadowhunters were just using Will to get to her. Maybe he was the one assigned to keep an eye on her, to make sure she was still playing the game.

She didn't trust him, nor Sophie, though something in Sophie's posture had Tessa want to listen to her. If there was one thing she'd learned in the London Institute, it was to never trust anyone. So, she didn't trust Will. Not at all. Not even when she accepted his help. Will wasn't the only one who could play games. Tessa could keep up with him. She had the skill of reading body language as a sort of weapon. And maybe, just maybe, if he was stupid enough to reveal anything, she could go ahead and use that in her advantage and against him and the rest of the Shadowhunters.

Tessa looked around for the black car her brother was supposed to pick her up with, but it wasn't at the school's gate waiting for her, but parked a block away. She thought it was strange, but as she walked towards the car and got inside, she immediately found out why it was parked away from the school.

Instead of her brother, she found Magnus in the driver's seat. It didn't surprise her that much, because he was usually the one to drive her home when Nate couldn't, but she wondered what was her brother doing. As soon as she fastened her seat belt, Magnus stepped on the pedal, the car giving a burst of speed so that they were barreling down the long stretch of road.

"Where's Nate?" Tessa asked, breaking the silence.

Magnus shrugged, running a hand through his spiked hair. "With your father, I guess." Something told her he wasn't as uncaring and unknowledgeable about the whole thing as he acted. "So let's cut to the chase," he said, going for a casual tone, "what's going on between you and Will Herondale?"

You see, Magnus was also her sort of counselor, if she could call him that. When she didn't have anyone to talk to about certain things happening at school, she talked to him, because, unlike others, he understood. It wasn't that she trusted him over Jessamine, but sometimes, her best friend didn't understand, so Tessa was left with Magnus. And one thing she really liked about him was that she didn't pry in her personal life. Despite his age, he was really wise, much like an old man.

"Nothing much," Tessa replied, keeping her response as vague as possible and her voice calm, flat, devoid of any emotion.

He turned to look at her. "Mrs. Branwell told me that he sat down next to you today." When she didn't say anything, he went on. "Also, she told me the two of you and Gabriel were late for her class earlier this week. Not to mention Will sitting down next to you in my class. And at lunch that day —"

"Okay, I get it," she snapped, forgetting for a moment that he was, after all, her teacher. "He talked to me a few times this week. What's wrong about that?" It was the wrong question to ask. Tessa knew exactly what was wrong with her talking to Will and the rest of the Shadowhunters. She just didn't want to admit that in front of Magnus. She was that stubborn.

Magnus turned his gaze back to the road, which was relatively clear. "Nothing," he said sarcastically. Tessa just rolled her eyes as a response. "Of course nothing is wrong. Why would something be wrong in the first place? It's not like we're talking about Will Herondale and his gang of Shadowhunters, also known as the richest and most powerful kids in the school. As your history teacher would say, it's like a hierarchy. They're at the top, while you . . . You are at the bottom."

_They have made that very clear already_, Tessa thought bitterly to herself. She contemplated whether to tell him about what happened during history class earlier the week. How would he react if she knew that she'd been chosen to take part of their twisted game?

He sighed. "I don't want to invade your personal life," he said. "I just want you to be careful. They're not the right people to be playing around with, and you know that. Just make sure you don't fall into one of their games and you'll be fine." He smiled at her. "I know you're too smart for them, anyway."

_It's too late_, Tessa thought to herself, but dared not to say it aloud. She managed a small smile, though, hoping he wouldn't notice just how forced it really was. "Thank you," she said. "I promise I'll be careful."

Magnus just nodded, not pressing any further. She knew he trusted her, and was convinced that she was above all the drama happening inside the school. But how different was she from everybody else? Hadn't she agreed to play that game, despite being fully aware of the consequences? Wasn't she as rich as the other students? Thinking about it now, she wasn't that different.

The car twisted around a corner and zipped down the road towards her house. In no time, he was parking in front of the mansion Tessa was living in. That was when she noticed another car parked in the driveway, a car she didn't recognize.

"It's not a reporter," Magnus said, looking around for paparazzi. Reporters were not an unusual sight at their residence, mainly because her father was the best and most successful lawyer in Britain. "The car would look different."

Tessa nodded, opening the door of the car and making her way to the front door as slowly. The first thing she heard when she stepped inside was voices. Close by.

_Dammit._

Her father, Richard, was home. And with a client or a friend or something, she thought, because the quiet murmurs she heard were too low for it to be her brother or her mother, Elizabeth. She tiptoed to the wall separating the front hallway from the living room, pressing herself against it.

_What am I gonna do?_

She had to go through that room to go anywhere else in the house.

The hallway opened into the living room, and it was a miracle they hadn't heard or seen her yet. The best she could do was hope that they would move the conversation into her father's office and that way she'd be able to make it upstairs.

What was her father talking about anyway that needed to be said so quietly in an empty house?

"— could do that too," Richard was saying. "But it won't stick."

So he was talking to someone from work. But then why would they be here, and not at the building where the firm was? That was usually where Richard met his clients. Unless he was talking to Nate . . .

The other person spoke, his voice low, smooth and slightly familiar. Male, but not her brother. But she eventually recognized that voice.

_Gabriel._

It explained why he hadn't been in sixth period — had he been here the whole time, talking to her father? From Richard's words, it sounded like they were talking about one of his cases.

Maybe Gabriel had simply needed a lawyer, and decided to come to her father. The fact that they were meeting here would even make sense, if Gabriel maybe didn't want it to get out. The thing that didn't quite fit was why he would come to her father in her first place. Richard was the best lawyer in the country, but Gabriel's father had a lot of lawyers working for him, lawyers with pretty good reputations.

_Maybe he got a girl pregnant and he can't tell his father._

Tessa's eyes widened. _Where the hell did that came from_? Though it was a possibility, that Gabriel had done something he couldn't tell his father about. His father was a severe man from what she'd heard, always making sure his children weren't going out in the world to do stupid things. He was a man who cared about his reputation and to whom what other people thought of him and his sons meant a lot.

She stepped forward to hear more and a floorboard creaked under her feet.

_Damn Richard for not giving into her mother's request to change the floors in the hallway last month._

Her father and Gabriel stopped talking immediately.

"Could it be Mrs. Gray?" Gabriel whispered. He was quiet, but Tessa still heard him since the whole house was dead silence. She didn't think any of them even dared to really breathe properly.

"No," Richard said after a moment of silence. "She wouldn't be back so soon."

"Parents? Relatives? Friends? Clients?" Gabriel suggested, his voice tight. Her father must have been shaking his head at each suggestion, because there was barely a pause between each word the other boy said.

"They wouldn't eavesdrop," her father clarified. "Not even my son. In fact, I can only think of one person who would do that, and she's supposed to be in school . . ." Tessa heard the couch as her father stood up and the sound of footsteps getting closer and closer to where she was standing.

_Shit, I am so dead._

For a moment, she considered ducking in the hallway closet and hide, and then decided against it, brushing away the idea. She wasn't twelve anymore, and she wasn't going to act like she had back then when she'd been caught eavesdropping to her father's conversations in his office, and she'd sneaked in the closet and pretended she was looking for something there. And, besides, her father and Gabriel weren't idiots. Not all the time, and not when it truly mattered, at least.

Instead, Tessa just brushed non-existing dust off her jeans and straightened her back as her father appeared from the other side of the wall and scowled at her, his usually kind brown eyes darkening at they came to rest on her.

"You," Richard said when he saw her.

Tessa bit her lip, nodding slowly, as if not to anger him further. "Me."

"Why aren't you in school?" he demanded. Gabriel hadn't come out yet, but he probably would soon. She could just see him from Richard's shoulder, shifting impatiently as he watched them. She wasn't sure if he knew it was her. Her father probably hid her from Gabriel's view, considering he was a couple of inches taller than her.

"The classes are over," Tessa responded simply, which was true. There was no reason for her to spend her time at school. Her day ended earlier on Friday, because she chose not to stay at the extra classes the school offered every day.

Her father didn't believe her, though. He usually didn't fall for anything she said. He'd been, after all, the one who'd taught her to lie to get herself easier out of situations at school. "Don't tell me you're starting to ditch school now," he said, his brow furrowing. He had a point. "Are people bullying you?"

Tessa resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. "No, Dad, I'm still being anti-social as usual." Other than the Shadowhunters, but he didn't need to know that. He'd freak out. Or maybe he wouldn't, considering one of them was in his_house_.

"Are you spending time around bad influences? Did they tell you to skip?" he demanded. It just kept getting worse and worse as the interrogation went on. How this guy is a top shot lawyer while being awful at parenting questionings like this and handling teenagers, Tessa didn't know. She saw Gabriel looking around the lounge, apparently having lost interest in their conversation.

She snorted. "Hey, I said I was being anti-social, remember? Not a drug addict."

"Are you pregnant?" Richard demanded, causing Tessa's face to turn an alarmingly bright shade of red.

"No, I'm fine! It's Friday, I don't have extra classes today," she yelled, her temper breaking. Gabriel's head snapped up and he glanced at them, recognising her voice, she thought, judging from the pallor of his face.

He stood up and walked over to them. "Tessa?" Gabriel asked.

Tessa rolled her eyes, a habit that she'd been using a lot these past few days. "Why are you here?" he demanded.

"What are you doing here?" he replied, flipping the question on me. So. It was true. He did have a habit to respond to questions with even more question. She wanted to say that she asked first, but she kept herself from asking because it was immature and it'd get them nowhere.

Instead, she threw up her arms. "I live here," she told him.

Gabriel paled even more and whipped around to look at her father. "She's your _daughter_? You never mentioned having a daughter."

Tessa rose her eyebrows. "No, we just happen to have the same surname and live in the same house. Such a big coincidence, don't you think?" was her comeback.

Her father answered Gabriel's question by nodding, while still eyeing them suspiciously. "How do you two know each other?"

Gabriel's had 'oh shit' written all over it. She would've laughed, mostly because she didn't know that he was so afraid of her father, had she not been in trouble herself. She thought a chuckle still escaped, because he glared at her for a moment before awkwardly shifting his weight from one leg to another.

"You didn't know?" Tessa asked. She had figured all of the Shadowhunters knew that she was Richard and Elizabeth Gray's daughter, more or less. Thanks to the press always invading their home, it wasn't exactly secret either, despite her parents' attempt to keep their children out of the spotlight and the cruel eyes of the world they were living in.

Gabriel muttered something under his breath, before he started edging towards the door. "My father is waiting for me at home. I really should get go—"

"Not so fast, young man," Tessa's father stepped it, freezing him on spot by grabbing his arm. "I'm not done with the two of you yet, not until you tell me how you know each other."

Gabriel looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there, which didn't make any sense since they hadn't done anything bad. Then she thought of something. Maybe it was because of what they got her involved in. The little game, as they called it, they were forcing her to play. Richard seemed fine with him, and she wondered how he would react if he found out what Gabriel and the rest of the Shadowhunters were doing.

But Tessa doubted even that would make Gabriel react like that. So why exactly was Gabriel dreading that so much? She had been caught eavesdropping, not him.

"Why is he helping you with a case?" Tessa asked first before Richard got the chance to start his interrogation. It seemed strange that Gabriel would be helping her father with a case. Richard usually liked to work alone, always saying that he didn't need any dead weight, which was also why he was so successful. And even in the rare cases he had worked with someone, it had been an adult, a qualified person for the job, not a minor who was in the same grade as his daughter. There was no way Gabriel could be working for her father. And Richard working for him was just as unlikely.

"How do you know him?" her father countered, narrowing her eyes at her, forgetting for a moment that Gabriel was still with them and watching their exchange. Tessa wanted to snap at him for being so silent, but she knew that if he would start talking, he would destroy her slight chance at getting the information she wanted out of her father.

Tessa returned his stare. "Everybody knows who he is," she snorted, but when her father glared at her, she added "We go to school together and just have a few classes together. Check our schedules if you want." Richard glanced at Gabriel, who nodded in approval, before she spoke again. "There. You now know. Now, answer my question. Why is he helping you with one of your cases?"

Gabriel frowned at her father. "We had a deal," he said calmly, speaking for the first time in the last five minutes. "Not telling anyone who isn't directly involved."

Her father didn't take his eyes off her for even a second as he replied to Gabriel. "I'd say she's pretty involved, Gabriel."

_Is this a test_? she wondered. Did her father know about the game? But he couldn't. Gabriel wasn't stupid enough to tell him, unless he wanted to be thrown into jail. Tessa tried to school her features in a blank expression, but she wasn't sure if it was working.

Richard sighed. "Gabriel is building up a case against one of the Shadowhunters. William Herondale. He thinks Will is guilty of . . . something."

Tessa caught her father's hesitation. "Guilty of what?" she pressed on, despite dreading what would come out of their mouths.

It was Gabriel who answered her question. "Murder."

* * *

><p><em>My cliffhangers are getting even more terrible as we go along. But I think it's fair to say that you should expect a cliffhanger nearly every chapter. I'm that cruel.<em>

_Now, what are your predictions? What do you think is going on with Will and this murder?_

_I must say, though, I was a tad disappointed by the response the last chapter got. Considering I got 21 reviews for the first chapter and only 6 for the second chapter, I think you can see why I was a bit disappointed. I know I shouldn't, but I rely _a lot_ on the response each chapter gets. It keeps me motivated and it pushes me forward. I can't wait to see what this chapter's response is going to be.  
><em>

_Also, forgive the mistakes you find. I will proof-read this tomorrow._

_Till next Sunday!  
><em>

_- The Iron Sister_


	4. you could try and take us

_I'm sorry! I'm sorry for being so cruel and mean and evil to end the chapter where I ended it. I warned you at the beginning of the story that you should expect cliffhangers like that one nearly every chapter. You've been warned my friends. And if you thought _that _chapter's ending was cruel, wait for this one._

_It's going to be . . . surprising, to say the least. Shocking, even, because I think it's fair to say that we've reached the point where the plot I've been building up will start from. Don't say you haven't been warned._

_Also, my mind is blown. 18 reviews! Thank you so so so so so much! Jeez, I think I've said thank you so many times. But really, thank you a lot! I had so much fun going through your predictions, and of course I'm not going to tell you was right and who was wrong. Oh, and I do apologize for not replying to all of you but, I promise, I'm getting to it._

_Oh, I almost forgot. I would like to thank The Pale Red Queen for taking the time to beta-read the last three chapters and this one, and Nicole from nicoleherondale for the never-ending support and for all the fun I have talking to her through PM. Love you, girls, you're awesome._

_Chapter song:_

_**Glory and Gore __— Lorde_

* * *

><p><em>You could try and take us<em>  
><em>But we're the gladiators<em>  
><em>Everyone a rager<em>  
><em>But secretly they're saviors<em>  
><em>Glory and gore go hand in hand<em>  
><em>That's why we're making headlines<em>  
><em>You could try and take us<em>  
><em>But victory's contagious<em>

It took Tessa a moment to process Gabriel's words.

"Murder?" she repeated, her voice dead even to her own ears. She stared at her father and Gabriel, who were both eyeing her curiously, carefully watching her reaction. Tessa couldn't react anymore. She was frozen. She was waiting for one of them to take the words back, to say it was some kind of a stupid joke they were playing on her to mess around.

They didn't.

She couldn't quite let the words fully sink in. Will . . . Murder . . . It all seemed much too twisted and messed up even for him. Tessa couldn't deny that she hadn't heard a lot of weird stories about Will, because she had. He'd been accused of so many things, from kidnappings to murders; all of the Shadowhunters had been. Yet only know did she realize that all this time she'd been sort of defending them in her heart. Despite what Tessa had heard, she'd never believed the rumours, not really. She didn't trust them either, but she'd never believed that seventeen-year-olds were capable of such things.

Apparently, they were.

Gabriel frowned at her father. "That's it," he said. "We're not telling her anything."

Richard didn't take his eyes off her for even a second as he replied to Gabriel. "No," he agreed. "We aren't telling her."

_Is this a test_? Part of Tessa wondered as her father continued to watch her. To see how she would react? Probably, seeing as if she wanted a job like his, she'd be dealing with this kind of information almost every day. Or maybe, it was her father's way of telling himself that she wasn't capable of following his footsteps in a career like his. Tessa tried to school her features into a blank expression, but she wasn't sure if it was working. There were just too many things on her mind.

She wanted to squirm under Gabriel and Richard's steady gazes, but resisted the urge. No weaknesses, especially not in front of Gabriel. "Who was it?" she asked. Her voice barely came out above a whisper despite her efforts. "Who did he kill?"

Her father and Gabriel exchanged a glance and Richard opened his mouth to respond, but Gabriel beat him to it. "No," he shook his head, his strands of brown hair flying in every direction. Despite his seemingly relaxed stance, his green eyes held fear and worry, two emotions she never associated with Gabriel Lightwood before. "We're not telling her."

_What_? she thought angrily. They were talking about this mirder right in her face, and they weren't even going to tell her the whole truth? "Why?" Tessa demanded, her voice rising up a few more octaves than necessary. If Gabriel wasn't lying and Will — someone she was now forced to talk to every day — had homicidal tendencies, she might as well know who he killed in the first place.

"Because you'll ruin our case, like you always do," Gabriel said flatly, his voice devoid of any emotion, having enough decency to avoid her gaze by gaining sudden interest in his shoes and looking down at them with great concern. For a moment, she tried to see if he was bluffing by reading his body language, but judging from what she could tell from his posture, he wasn't bluffing. He meant it.

Tessa couldn't help it — her eyes snapped to Richard. But he didn't give any indication of whether or not he had told Gabriel about what had happened when her aunt Harriet had been murdered. About what he said it hadn't been her fault, but she knew better. Of course it had been her fault. It was her stupidity that had made her father's job of capturing the people who'd murdered her aunt impossible, and even though nobody had ever pointed a finger at her, Tessa knew that because of what had happened, her family no longer trusted her with information that important. Now, her father's silence and lack of movements was an answer in itself.

Still Tessa glanced back at Gabriel, choosing her words carefully. "And how would you know that?" she asked him, her voice just as flat as his, hoping her father's silence meant something different than what she thought, though it was very unlikely.

That hope was crushed with Gabriel's response. "Richard told me," he said.

There was a sharp intake of breath that came from her father. He was probably waiting for her anger, betrayal, maybe even for her to throw a tantrum. And he was right waiting for that. Tessawas angry, but above all, she felt betrayed. Her own father, who was supposed to be the person she trusted most in the world, was now helping one of the Shadowhunters with a case against his friend and, on top of that, he'd told Gabriel one of her deepest secrets. Despite how betrayed she felt and how all those emotions rage inside her, Tessa pushed them down. I won't be predictable, she told herself.

"You know I'll find out eventually, right?" Tessa asked, keeping her eyes on Gabriel. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it after a few seconds, apparently deciding she wasn't trustworthy enough for what he was going to say, or that it gave away too much. She took his silence as a chance to keep going. "There are three things that can't stay hidden forever," she began in a steady voice. "The sun, the moon and the truth. The truth will come out, eventually, and I will be right there, waiting for it to come out."

"It's not that easy, Tessie," Richard sighed. It annoyed her that he was using her nickname in front of Gabriel, and only people close to her knew about, but she bit back her anger when she saw her father's tired posture. "We haven't even figured it out if it's true or not."

A noise escaped Gabriel's throat, and Tessa snapped her eyes back to him. It was something like a bitter chuckle that he had been unsuccessful in holding back. It told her Richard wasn't telling the truth. Or, at least, not all of it. When she looked closely, though, she noticed something else in his eyes, something which looked a lot like grief. But how was that even possible? Who would Gabriel Lightwood be grieving? And how was that person associated with Will Herondale?

Tessa glanced back at her father, who was now leaning against the wall. "How do you know he won't betray you?" she asked him. Richard narrowed his eyes at her but didn't say a word.

Gabriel snorted. "Thank you for your faith."

She ignored him, still watching her father, who was looking between her and Gabriel with a confused expression. Or, to be more precise, what was meant to look at a confused expression. Richard mostly glared at Gabriel, her father's fists clenched at his side, as if he wanted to punch the other boy any minute now. Tessa hesitated for a moment, afraid to anger him more, but she asked, "How do you know he won't tell his friends about the case."

The slight hesitation before her father answered told her the thought of Gabriel's betrayal had crossed his mind. Knowing him and how he usually worked, possibly more than once. "That would be stupid," he said, eyeing Gabriel. "Considering Gabriel came to me for help."

Out of all the lessons she'd taken in body language, if there was one thing she'd learned, it was to never trust people whose motives seemed fair enough because, her instructor used to say, they aren't always as fair as they seem. They're usually just for appearances. This was something Richard had told Tessa once, and now, looking at her father, she didn't quite believe that he wanted to help a guy who looked so innocent but who really wasn't. And what really concerned her the most was that her father knew exactly how dangerous the Shadowhunters and especially the Lightwood family were.

Unless there was something more than what Richard was letting on.

She turned back to Gabriel. "And you," Tessa began, "you're telling me that you're going against your own friend? Against your girlfriend's brother?" She let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Does she know about that?"

Gabriel's jaw clenched, and that movement alone was enough to tell Tessa the truth. Cecily didn't know, and in that moment there, she felt sympathy for the other girl. Tessa imagined finding out that her brother was being thrown into jail for murder. Despite Will and Cecily's distant relationship, it was obvious that they cared for each other. They were, after all, siblings, and Tessa couldn't imagine what it would be like for Cecily to find out that her boyfriend was accusing her own brother of murder. "She doesn't know," Gabriel confirmed, looking away. "But, if she knew the whole truth, she would agree with me."

"No, she wouldn't," Tessa interjected. She narrowed his eyes at him and that was when she finally realized what was going on. "That's it, isn't it? You know I'm right," she pointed out. Gabriel still wasn't looking at her, and she went on. "They're siblings. You know she'd hate you forever if you do that to her brother." She paused for a moment before she resumed. "Yet putting Will behind bars is more important than your girlfriend," Tessa realized out loud.

Gabriel did look up eventually, raising an eyebrow at her. "And I don't see why you would be defending Will like that," he said. "You make it sound as if you don't want me to throw him into jail."

Do I not? Tessa asked herself. Do I not want Gabriel to throw Will into jail? She didn't trust Will, nor Gabriel for that matter, that much she knew. She though of herself as a morally better person than them, yet was she really better if she agreed to punish a boy who could have been innocent.

"Then let me help," Tessa insisted. "Let me help figure this out."

"Why do you even care, anyway?" Gabriel demanded, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's none of your business, it has literally nothing to do with you, why would you want to get involved?"

Tessa closed her eyes and dug her nails in her palm so she wouldn't punch him, even though it was nearly impossible to get anywhere near to Gabriel while her father was standing there and watching their conversation curiously, positioning himself strategically in between them, closer to his daughter. "Why would I want to get involved? Are you kidding me?" Her voice shook as she tried to keep from yelling. "I know Will Herondale might have taken a human life, and you would like me to pretend that everything is just fine and that I have nothing to worry about? I am forced to sit next to him during most of my classes, I see him around in school, his locker is a few others away from mine and you say I shouldn't care?"

"You've been doing all of those things for the past week!" Gabriel retorted, his voice rising with every word that came out of his mouth. His green eyes were burning and in that moment Tessa was sure that she know had earned the hatred of Gabriel Lightwood. More of it than a week ago.

"I didn't know I was sitting down next to a murderer," she shot back. How did Gabriel stand it? Knowing he was talking to a killer? And someone who had probably killed on purpose too. A life taken by accident through a car crash or something else like that wouldn't need a lawsuit and a pile of cryptic answers. For a moment, she almost forgot that her father was still there

"Just forget about it then!" Gabriel was yelling now, not even bothering to keep his voice low anymore. That earned him a sharp look from Richard, and Gabriel pursed his lips and prevented himself from saying anything else.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't erase —" Tessa glanced at the clock on the wall "— an hour from my life. Though, if you have any idea how I could do that, do let me know."

"We don't know for sure if Will killed someone, Tessa," Richard cut in, straightening his back as he spoke. Gabriel scoffed, but didn't interrupt. "All we have up until this point is a series of coincidences and a couple of suspicions. That's all." Tessa thought her father was the only one calm out of all of them. If he wasn't calm, he was hiding it well enough, not showing any sign of unrest. That was one thing that made Richard Gray a great lawyer, but it was also extremely infuriating in circumstances like those.

"I don't believe in coincidences," Tessa sighed. "Things don't just happen, and I think you both know that." She tried matching her voice to her father's steady tone. Then, all of a sudden, another thing occurred to her. When Magnus had brought her home, he'd mentioned something about her brother being involved in one of her father's cases. How many people knew about this? Tessa wondered. Just them? "How does my brother fit in all of this?" she demanded, going straight to the point.

Her father didn't even try to deny that Nate wasn't involved. "Another person who knows the case always helps," Richard said.

Lie. Her father always said he worked better on his own, without any other dead weight, and Gabriel was part of the Shadowhunters. He was already inside, and close enough to Will. Gabriel could get information without arousing any suspicion at all. Neither of them needed her brother for this case.

"I know you're lying," Tessa told her father. "You don't need Nate, do you?"

Richard didn't even try and deny it.

"He said he'd cover me," Gabriel said abruptly.

"Cover you?" Tessa repeated. Then she understood what he meant. If Will or any of the other Shadowhunters were to find out of what Gabriel was doing, if anything went wrong, Nate would step in and erase all the tracks leading to Gabriel. He was good enough at doing that without getting caught. Nate could make up some long-winded believable lie to cover everything up.

"I told you, this could get ugly, and fast. I don't want you getting linked to it," Richard said quietly, watching her. Tessa purposefully kept her face blank and didn't meet her father's gaze. Richard turned to Gabriel, his expression and his voice both hardening. "I think you've said enough, Gabriel. Did you say you needed to go?"

Tessa held back a laugh. So subtle, she thought. Yes, he needed to go an hour ago, when Gabriel was trying to dodge her father's questions. "I'll walk him to the door," she said stiffly, straightening her back and leaving no room for protest. Her father narrowed his eyes at the two of them, but didn't say a word.

She peeked outside to see an unfamiliar man standing next to what she presumed was Gabriel's car. That man hadn't been there when she'd arrived from school. Tessa turned her gaze back to Gabriel, who was now shrugging his coat on himself.

"I had my driver come here before he picked Gideon from school," he clarified softly, catching her confused expression. "He has something to deliver to me."

"Oh." It was the only response Tessa had at that moment. She leaned against the wall in the hallway as she watched Gabriel with unseeing eyes wrapping his scarf around his neck. Although it was just the middle of October, it was unusually chilly for that time of the year.

Gabriel looked at her when she slumped against the wall, and for the first time since she'd met him, there was a softness in his eyes. "You've been warned," he said lowly as his eyes flickered over her shoulder, to the living room where her father still was. "You've been warned about us and our world."

Tessa shrugged nonchalantly, keeping her features in an amused expression to try and hide away all the confusing thoughts running through her mind. "Well, it looks like I'm involved now, am I not?"

He was still watching her, and there was something in his eyes that she couldn't quite put a finger on. Weariness? "We all have our secrets, Tessa," he warned her. "Dangerous secrets, and you don't want to be part of any of this. Trust me."

She stepped closer to him, keeping her eyes locked on his green ones. Her gaze never wavered as she said in a low, steady voice matching his. "You all have secrets," Tessa repeated. "Secrets I will find out, eventually. You can't hide from me." She stopped for a moment. "Do you think you can come into my life and try to turn me against my own best friend?" she challenged him, before she realized who she was talking to in the first place.

Gabriel's face darkened, but when his spoke, his voice was as calm and steady as ever. "I saw you sitting next to Will today," he said, much to Tessa's surprise. She didn't expect him to start talking about that out of all of things. "Talking to him as if you're best friends, when, in reality, you're just another victim to him." At Tessa confused expression, he let out a short, disbelieving laugh, and it sounded cruel even for him. "What, you didn't know? Did you really trust him?"

Tessa felt sick to her stomach. No, she didn't trust Will. She really didn't. But she'd heard so many things about him, had seen so many of his sides in just one day, she didn't quite know what to believe about him. If she was completely honest with herself, she couldn't deny that she wasn't curious about him. Curiosity was, after all, her besetting sin.

She tried hiding the way she felt from him. "I don't trust either of you," she said slowly."And I'm going to find out every single one of your secrets. Trust me."

Gabriel frowned. "This isn't a game, Tessa."

Tessa took a step back when she heard the couch from the living room creak. Her father was coming towards them. "I wasn't the one who said it was. And I also wasn't the one who started it in the first place."

"Goodbye, Gabriel," Richard said pointedly from behind her. He stepped closer to his daughter until he was standing beside her. They watched Gabriel taking a large, brown envelope from his driver before dismissing him and driving away in his own car. When he was out of sight, Tessa turned to walk up to her room, but her father caught her before she even made it out of the living room. "Can I tell you something?" he asked her.

She whirled around to face him. "Aside from the fact that I shouldn't trust the Shadowhunters?"

"You know you can't trust them," he told her. "I told you countless of times. They're dangerous."

"I'm not an idiot," Tessa replied.

"I'm serious, Tessie," he scolded.

Tessa raised her hands in surrender. Sometimes, her father could be really infuriating. "Why doesn't anybody believe me these days?" she asked. When her father opened her mouth to answer her, she quickly added. "Don't answer. It was a rhetoric question."

Richard laughed quietly to himself, that sort of laugh Tessa had noticed at a lot of parents who had children her age, that type of laugh parents shared as if they finally realized that their children were now grown-up and independent, not needing their help anymore. When he looked up at her, though, he was serious again. "I don't want you around them," he said.

"It's not like I have much of a choice," she told him, sighing. They went to her school, Tessa had most of her classes, if not all of them, with the Shadowhunters, and she was pretty sure there wasn't anywhere in the world where she could hide away from them. Tessa had a feeling that the Shadowhunters could literally do anything they wanted to, if they combined all their resources they and their families had.

"We can always —" her father began, but trailed off when he saw her expression.

Tessa already knew what he was going to say, and she could already feel the anger boiling in her veins, but she pushed it down. "No, she replied immediately. "I'm not running away, just because of a bunch of idiot teenagers. I am not running away. Not like I did last time."

Richard nodded. "You know, I don't want you around Gabriel. It'd be best if you just stayed away from him," he told her, and there was a new sharp edge to his voice as he spoke.

She threw up her hands. "I thought he was helping you with the case!" Tessa exclaimed.

Her father just sighed, slumping down on the couch, and Tessa thought that if her mother would be home, she'd scold him for sitting like that, for not being an example for his teenage daughter. He, of course, would just roll his eyes at her. "I trust him more than his friends," he admitted, "but I don't trust him when it comes to you. If you ever have any problem at all, you come to me, got it?" He gave her a hard look, leaving no room for arguments. Tessa pressed on anyway.

"What's wrong with Gabriel?" Tessa asked him.

"I still have to consider the . . ." Richard hesitated. He sighed before resuming his sentence. ". . . possibility that he was behind all of this, this murder he's now accusing Will of despite how unlikely it may seem. If there's one thing I learned in all the years I've worked as a lawyer, it is to not trust even your own client. Not truly."

So that was why her father had hesitated when she had asked him how he could be sure that Gabriel wouldn't betray him. Tessa should have known that he wasn't as sure as he seemed. In fact, it was quite the opposite; he was toying with the idea that maybe Gabriel had been the one who had committed the murder, or worse, any other of the Shadowhunters. How am I supposed to talk to any of them now? Tessa asked herself.

"I think," her father began softly, in that tone he used whenever he was telling her something he trusted her wholeheartedly with, "that maybe Gabriel is doing this, coming to me to solve the case, to try to cover himself up."

"And what about Will?" Tessa asked him. Did her father really think that Will was innocent, that Gabriel was accusing him of this murder because of some old misunderstanding between the two of them? At this point, anything was possible, though why Gabriel would accuse Will out of all people of such thing, it was still a mystery.

"I don't think he's as guilty as Gabriel says," Richard admitted. "There's been a lot of rumours and stories about him and his family, and I've looked in some of the more important ones. While there had been some . . . scandals with his family as a whole, his parents being involved more, really, all of those stories you must have heard at your school about him kidnapping girl and other things were proved to be just that. Nothing more but stories made out by people who you kids call these days attention seekers."

"So," Tessa concluded, "you're now saying that I can trust Will and not trust Gabriel?"

"No," her father shook his head. He locked gazes with her, and she could see in her father's eyes a sort of warning. "Trust neither. But it would be helpful if you kept an eye out on Will for me, if you have all those classes with him." When Tessa began to protest, he raised his hand. "I'm not saying that you should spend every minute of your life with him. Just watch him closely and talk to him from time to time. Maybe, using those skills I taught you, you can see something in his body language.

"If you want me to keep an eye on Will," she said, "then why can't you tell me who was killed?" Tessa already had a couple of guesses, but none of them were really certain. If she knew who had been killed, or, at least, kidnapped, it would probably be a lot easier to figure out who had done it.

"Tessie, I said I don't want you involved any more than you already are."

"Because you think I'll mess it up like last time." It wasn't a question, and he didn't try to answer it, not really.

"You did —"

"Then why did you tell Gabriel about what happened?" she demanded, cutting her father off. The betrayal and anger she had pushed back were resurfacing again, and she felt the pressure of tears behind her eyes. "I was ten years old!"

Richard reached out for her. "Tessie —"

"_And you said it didn't matter_!" Tessa snapped. She dug her nails into her palm and whipped around, running up the stairs before her father could even try to stop her. Another minute down there, and she probably would have broken out into tears, hating herself for showing that kind of weakness, even in front of her own father.

Tessa would never truly believe what she had done that day in front of the paparazzi, the flashing lights of their camera and their loud voices, hadn't affected everything about that case, hadn't let her aunt's killer walk around free. But, for a while, she had almost deluded herself into thinking it hadn't been her fault. Maybe it was better that she had stopped in that moment.

With delusions and pretty lies, she could trick herself into believing anything.

**. . .**

When her mother, Elizabeth, knocked on her bedroom door a couple of hours later that evening, Tessa was busy attempting to draw a map of the Shadowhunters with what she knew about them. Which, unfortunately, wasn't that much. It was closer to nothing, if she was fully honest with herself, and that frustrated her the most.

Tessa didn't know any of them well enough to rule any of them out of the list she'd made. She was temped to cross out Gideon, because he was Gabriel's twin brother and it would be dumb of Gabriel to convict his own brother, but she didn't know either of them well enough to do so. The same went for Cecily, who was Gabriel's girlfriend.

She wasn't sure if Cecily could be crossed out. She wasn't just Gabriel's girlfriend; she was also Will's twin sister. They could have worked together, for all Tessa knew. And in case Will was really responsible for that murder, it was unlikely that Cecily didn't know. They weren't close, but they were still close enough that she would know stuff like that, and maybe even help her brother with it, if she had something against the person who was murdered.

"Hey," her mother said softly, stepping quietly into the room. She was watching her daughter with kind grey eyes, as grey as Tessa's. "Come downstairs. Dinner's ready, and I'm afraid that your brother will eat your plate as well at the rate he's eating."

Despite her mother's attempt at a joke, she wasn't really in the mood for it. Instead, Tessa grimaced. "I'm not really that hungry." She'd have to face her father eventually, but she didn't want to that day. She needed time to think things through first.

Elizabeth looked at her with genuine concern written all over her face. "Is everything okay?" her mother asked her, taking another step into the room before stopping a few feet away from where Tessa was sitting down at the desk, as if to give her personal space. Tessa almost felt guilty for treating her mother like that.

Tessa turned to look at her mother as she finally gathered the courage to take a seat on the edge of her daughter's bed. "I suppose Dad already told you about what happened today, right?" She already knew the answer to the question.

Her mother nodded slowly, almost cautiously.

"Did you know about the case?" Tessa asked in a low voice.

She nodded again.

For a fleeting moment there, she felt betrayed for the second time that day. Why hadn't her mother told her? But then Tessa realized it was idiotic — Elizabeth didn't know the way in which she was involved with the Shadowhunters. She hadn't told her nor her father nor her brother that the Shadowhunters had picked her to participate in their . . . game, as they called it. Her mother probably didn't think she cared.

"He lied, you know," Tessa said in a small voice after a moment of silence. It was then when she realized what had really bothered her the most. That she had been lied to all this time, had been led to believe something else but the truth.

Her mother looked up at her. "Tessie —"

"He said it didn't matter. Not that I really believe it, but . . ." Tessa trailed off, not sure what else there was to say.

Elizabeth shook her head. "There wasn't enough evidence, anyway. We had close to nothing. It would have been near impossible," she told Tessa, trying to comfort her one way or another.

But she had made it completely impossible.

There was a reason her father kept his cases quiet, especially when they involved things as serious as murder. If anyone knew he was working on a murder case, not only would it be harder to collect information with the paparazzi on his tail, but also, whoever Richard was trying to convict could bury all the evidence, leaving nothing behind.

"Your father is trying to keep you safe," her mother added when Tessa didn't reply. "People do a lot of things to try and keep people they love and care about safe. Lying isn't the worst of them, you know."

"I know," Tessa sighed, slumping in her chair. "I just need some time to think. That's all."

Her mother, understanding that Tessa didn't feel like talking anymore, stood up. "I'll put your dinner in the microwave, okay?"

Tessa nodded. "Thanks."

Once Elizabeth was gone from her room, Tessa looked back at her insufficient map and let out a sigh of frustration. She had always known there was something off with the Shadowhunters, but Tessa had always thought it was just some kind of scandalous secret. She had thought they were just a group of privileged teenagers that had been shoved too far into the spotlight. But now truly realizing their secrets could kill her . . . Well, know, she had no idea what to think, what to expect.

And that was the most dangerous thing of all.

Tessa gave up a while later and headed downstairs at the insistence of her growling stomach. Quiet voices and a faint light came from her father's office, but she didn't interrupt. Instead, Tessa tiptoed to the kitchen, not really wanting to talk to her mother, her father or Nate in that moment.

Dinner had been simple, just pasta in some tomato sauce. With a pang of guilt, Tessa remembered that she had been the one who was supposed to make dinner for the four of them that night, but with everything that had happened with her father and Gabriel, she had completely forgotten.

The pasta was only a little bit cold, so Tessa put it in the microwave on high for half a minute. As she was waiting for it to heat up, she noticed a stack of paper with a bright sticky note on the coffee table. It was filed on the Shadowhunters, to her, from her father. Some things were missing, of course, like the fifth page of both Will and Cecily, Jem and Gideon's files and the last page of Gabriel, but Tessa knew it was Richard's apology, his peace offering.

She grabbed the pasta and headed upstairs, hugging the files to her chest. When she got to her room, she set them down on the desk . . . Then found herself hesitating to open them. They would have answers she was sure of that.

But it seemed every answer she got only came with a dozen more questions.

A shriek cut through the silence of the room, interrupting Tessa's thoughts, and she heard her parents shouting from downstairs. But the shriek didn't came from the house. It came from outside. Tessa rushed to the window, drawing the curtains back, just in time to see someone being run over by a car, flying for a moment and then crumbling on the ground without moving. The sight in front of her caused Tessa to scream at the top of her lungs, despite herself, because she instantly recognized the person lying on the ground.

It was Jessamine.

* * *

><p><em>. . . Please don't kill me? I mean, you wouldn't get the next chapter. It would be your loss.<em>

_No, but really. I'm sorry! I really am. I told you that you should expect cliffhangers like this one._

_There's not much for me to say here. I would talk more about your predictions, but it would spoil the whole thing and, really, I have so many surprises in front of you. It's like I have all these cliffhangers and surprises and plot twists aligned on a shelf and I'm pulling them out as we go, and meanwhile, while you freak out, I'm sitting back and enjoying all of it, because I am that evil. Muhahahaha._

_Again, thank you so much for the 18 review! I was shocked, really. Do you think this chapter can get 20 reviews? That would be unbelievable and awesome and amazing and mind-blowing and there's really no other adjective coming to mind right now._

_Till next Sunday! _

_- The Iron Sister_


	5. Please Read

_Hello!_

_This, unfortunately, is not a new chapter. I am sorry for those of you who thought that this was a new update. You have been let down, and to be honest, that is the worst thing an author can do, to let down his/her readers. Let me tell you exactly what happened and when I will post the fifth chapter._

_I couldn't get this chapter done because of school, mostly. I've been very busy and had very little time to write, and I also started sketching a new project, just making outlines for now, which I will talk more about if you want me to. But yes, school has been stressful. Luckily, though, this is my last week before the mid-term break, and it's going to be very chill, so that will leave me much more time to write than I had until now._

_The fifth chapter will be posted __**next Sunday**__. I promise. Another reason why I'm postponing it is because I wasn't pleased with that I wrote, and I didn't want to rush the chapter so that I could post it for you. What I've written so far for chapter five is not good, and you guys deserve so much better than 'not good'. With that being said, I will start writing this chapter again, and it will be up next Sunday._

_I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I really am. You guys have been so supportive, and I can't thank you enough for that. It makes me really happy to know that your devotion to these characters and this story is as strong as mine. I know that I left on quite a cliffhanger, but if I can get the fifth chapter right, maybe it will make it up for it._

_I will see you next Sunday, I promise. And, again, I'm sorry for the delay._

_- The Iron Sister_


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